Meri Kahani, tags ki Jubaani..

I will keep this one short. When I added tags to my blog, I said something like 'the number of tags, number of posts in each category, and such are insights to you about yourself'. Taking that to be true, the tags that I use (and miss if any) these days will reflect the changes that have occured in the meantime. So here we go. 'WeekendPosts' and 'TVShows' are totally out of use. 'WeekendPosts' was my way of using some of the ample time available over weekends to make a record of that ample time. Not anymore. 'TVshows', I don't watch any. Not even TBBT. 'GudLink' has mostly moved to buzz, and 'Movies' to the movie blog. 'ApparentlyTechnical' has gone into shadows, but I sincerely wish it returns. 'MyOwnRantAKAPersonal' sees an occasional post here and there, and 'Books' is thriving. 'GhumnaFirna' - nil. The posts here were mostly a product of the office group, and not surprisingly, it has dispersed somewhat in this year or two. That leaves us with 'AboutBloggersAndBlogging', and I was going to put a 'nil' there too, but then I realized this post itself will come under it.

So we come to the big conclusion, 'variety' has gone down. Probably it's high time to start looking for some new tags.

Why do people leave?

Well the title appears a bit misleading to me now that I have written it. That question might not have a satisfactory answer, and I don't feel qualified enough to tackle it, but what I actually have in mind is a very specific instance of that question, why do people leave blogging? I am not talking about people who did not quite get started, and their one or two posts stand there to pay testimony to this fact. I am talking about good bloggers (at least in my opinion), who had interesting things to share and readers to prove this, but consciously decided to quit at some point in time. The question popped in my mind while reading Stevey's latest post. His blog is very popular and I enjoy it, but he's about to leave. And let's not forget that it was his post, why you should write blogs that encouraged many, many to write their first post. And he's not alone. In my short life as a blogger, I've seen this happening more often than once. So what is it? Does it take too much energy, or you run out of things to share? Both of these reasons seem unlikely to me, but they might be true. Or is it that after a certain stage blogging starts turning into an obsession, interfering with the way we experience the world? (this was related to me by a friend, xkcd is as always helpful in making the point). Or is it that you lose interest, stop seeing the point, in a way? But if so, why? Or is their some other reason that I am too naive to see right now? I don't know. Myabe I will find out one day. But another question now pops into my mind, will the feel-like-leaving thingy ever happen to me?

From TIME

25 best blogs 2009.
Some changes to my Blogroll expected as I check these out. Currently only BA makes it to my top blog list ;-). There is one link though, that I would like to point out to GM diet fans (whose numbers are increasing at an alarming rate ;-), slashfood. Looks like some useful stuff.
And for what it's worth, here are 5 most overrated blogs, again from TIME.

Enjoy!!

Yet another edit to the blog..

Tags are cheap. You (at least some of you) know that already. But I discovered only recently that my blog lacks them. After the revelation (being a software guy) I spent some time doing the requirements analysis. What do you need tags for? For one thing, you can quickly search related posts. Now I couldn't imagine another human being searching my blog, but sure enough, it could be useful to me too. Sure I can have a few tags. The next question was whether to add tags from now on or tag my old posts too. Keeping some posts without tags seemed unfair, so I decided to take some time to tag all o' them.

I did not underestimate the task. I have 100+ posts. And I had to go through almost every one of them (in some cases even I had forgotten what was there). But overall it was a refreshing exercise. Then I had to invent stupid names for my tags, which was fun too. And in the end, I know more about my own blog now. For example, I always thought that I wrote too much about what I did over weekends, now I see their number is not that much (which means there is more to come :-). The number of tags that you need, number of posts in each category and so on speak volumes too. What started as a pointless exercise in redundancy (to use the expression from the camel book) ended up being quite fruitful.

The conclusion? Tags are useful, think of using them, if you haven't already.

Sorry, No Insights (but a lot of blah blah..)

It has been an interesting journey so far. Ohk, Ohk, I guess some context is in order. So did anybody notice that this is my 10201st (in base 3, equals 100 in decimal) post? For obvious reasons I did. Now 100 is just as arbitrary as 317, but certain numbers have got a special status, 100 happens to be one of them, and I am not the one who misses a good opportunity to blabber. I might as well have written tried to write something useful/insightful etc (to mark the occasion, as they say), but that seemed contrary to expectations, including my own. So here we go.

My first post comes to my mind. When I wrote it, I did not have a clue about what I wanted my blog to be. It was just an experiment (with 100 posts now it's an out of control experiment I guess). And that shows. You won't find a theme here. Blogging taught a few things, both about the actual topics and about the people who write about them. It's a wonderful way to stay updated. Even rereading my old posts has been a refreshing experience (for me, it might be a torturous one for you, so think twice before you go ahead), so many things that matter to me now have a permanent existence outside my head.

So I plan to continue. I am sure I irritated and annoyed some. I am sure I have been ill-informed or downright wrong about some things or made a fool of myself in other ways. But if not for the blog, I would not have even known it. So I plan to continue. Sorry guys, you won't find any insights here, but if you wanna know about such important things as what makes Hancock cool (in my humble opinion, I hasten to add), it's all here :-). Happy blogging and May the force be with you and a towel. (Many thanks to Manish for the quote).

To write or not (or To write here or there)

You should write blogs.
We saw that one earlier. Now, for reasons of symmetry I present this..
You shouldn't.
But I must say I remain unimpressed. You are not gonna find me on Twitter anytime soon.

Blogger's Dilemma..

Ninety percent of everything is crap.
~Sturgeon's law

I blog a lot (these days) and comment on other blogs a lot. But apply Sturgeon's law and there goes your Ninety percent !! (OK, I don't know about you, but it surely applies to me). And nobody likes crap. So the question is how to reduce it. One solution is to do these things less. That will reduce the total and hence its associated ninety percent crap. But to me, it looked like focusing on the wrong thing. I would rather increase the total and along with it, increase the ten percent noncrap (that's what I generally do). But I am really not sure that's the optimal thing to do. Nobody likes the increased ninety percent crap also. The best thing to do (it seems to me) is to put the whole thing in the least irritating place, like your own blog (coz people hate crap on their lawns even more). That translates to a 'Note to self': Try to write less crappy comments.

(I went ahead and googled for some advice. It returned this. So this is not that uncommon a problem, and there's still hope for me. Meanwhile, you can read all my comments as if prefixed with YACC (Yet Another Crappy Comment ;-)).

[And I agree in advance, the title (in addition to the the whole post) is crappy].

Evolution of a Blogger

Note: 'he' should be read as 'he/she', same for 'his' etc.

Evolution is not a belief system, it is a fact.

-read on BABlog

So it's only natural to suppose that Bloggers evolve too..

First Post phase:
Aka Bubbling Enthusiasm phase. After much procrastination, TPB (The Poor Blogger, faute de mieux) takes the first faltering step, i.e. writes his first post. Generally it does not have any content. Just the announcement, big plans etc etc. The link is forwarded to everybody in contacts. TPB thinks of this as a big event and eagerly awaits feedback.

Post First Post phase
Aka The First Blow phase. TPB discovers nearly nobody read his blog. Most, most people just don't care. That's a fact. TPB thinks that maybe the non-content post was the reason. So he goes on to write something that he thinks has content. Again nobody reads it.

I have better things to do phase
After facing the harsh realities of life, TPB thinks, maybe blogging is not for him. I mean (he thinks), what's the point of blogging if nobody reads it? I have better things to do, is what his conclusion is. And here, at this point, the evolution takes an unfortunate turn. Most bloggers leave, never to return. But there's still hope for some.

Another spike in the graph phase
The thing with the Internet is, once you write something, it's forever. So somebody stumbles upon TPB's stuff. And a passing mention is enough to revive TPB's enthusiasm. A series of posts follows.. And slowly, TPB starts to 'get it'. He discovers, there is a point in blogging, even if nobody reads it. It helps you organize your thoughts and provide a way to record them, which you can later enjoy and amuse yourself with. Now, either he figures this out himself, or more probably, somebody points him to Stevey's post. And he blogs happily ever after (and some posts are even read).

The evolution of course goes on, but I have no idea exactly how. I'll keep looking for it..

Another edit to the blog !!

Can you tell the difference? Look at the right pane, under 'Blogs I (try to) follow'. Anything? OK, without further ado, let me tell you what it is. There is a new entry: 'Fermat's Last Theorem Blog'. Discovered it a couple of days ago. In all probability you have already heard about Fermat's Last Theorem, so I won't bore you with what it is. Point being, popular books like the excellent Fermat's Last Theorem (aka Fermat's Enigma) by Simon Singh (If you haven't read it, well, let me put it thus. I won't mind if you left this post right now to go read it), being intended for a general audience, provide only a high level overview of the actual proof. After reading that book, an attempt to understand the actual details is a natural progression. And the aforementioned blog has exactly the same purpose. The author, Larry Freeman, in a series of posts, tracks the historical development of the solution along with the actual proofs, from the point of view of an amateur. Smells good !! I have started reading it. Will keep you posted of how it goes.

Enjoy!!

Amitabh starts blogging..

Welcome to blogosphere, Amitji!! Check out his blog, here.
(Thanks to Rohit for the link).

About my first post

Wow, my own blog.. and my first post..
Now this was meant to be a grand event, to let the world know that 'I have arrived'. But because of a terrible miscalculation (or let me say overcalculation) of the importance of the first post, the first post itself was delayed too much and finally (that means 5 minutes ago) I just decided to write it once and for all and go home (happily)..
The talk of the first post and my mind is as full of ideas as the sky is full of clouds in April (OK.. terrible analogy.. forget it..).
So the point is I don't have any particular topic for this post.. lets see what comes out..
Maybe this is a good time to explain the somewhat cryptic name of the blog.. jitr4me
It stands for 'Journey Is The Reward For Me'. This phrase is generally attributed to Steve Jobs (except the 'for me' part) of whom I am a great admirer. Speculation on why I chose this particular name out of thousands that popped in my mind when I created this blog and interpretation of the phrase itself is left as an exercise to the reader..
Now something about myself.. I am Mohsin (you probably know that already). I like to read (you probably don't know that already). Currently I am reading 'The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams (and that book is amazing). I also like to talk (you might have guessed that by now..) and sleep (there is probably no way you can guess it, hehe).
OK enough for the first post..
gotta go home..
Chal bye..